Pharmacia was a

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and ...

and biotechnological company in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

that merged with the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

pharmaceutical company

Upjohn The Upjohn Company was a pharmaceutical manufacturing firm founded in 1886 in Hastings, Michigan, by Dr. William E. Upjohn who was an 1875 graduate of the University of Michigan medical school. The company was originally formed to make ''fria ...

in 1995.

History

Pharmacia company was founded in 1911 in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

, Sweden by pharmacist Gustav Felix Grönfeldt at the ''Elgen'' Pharmacy. The company is named after the Greek word φαρμακεία, transliterated ''pharmakeia'', which means 'sorcery'. In the company's early days, much of its profits were derived from the "miracle medicine" Phospho-Energon. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Swedish chemist Björn Ingelman (who worked for Arne Tiselius at

Uppsala university Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

) researched various uses for the

polysaccharide Polysaccharides (), or polycarbohydrates, are the most abundant carbohydrates found in food. They are long chain polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with w ...

dextran Dextran is a complex branched glucan ( polysaccharide derived from the condensation of glucose), originally derived from wine. IUPAC defines dextrans as "Branched poly-α-d-glucosides of microbial origin having glycosidic bonds predominantly C- ...

. Together with the medical researcher Anders Grönwall, he discovered that dextran could be used as a replacement for

blood plasma Blood plasma is a light amber-colored liquid component of blood in which blood cells are absent, but contains proteins and other constituents of whole blood in suspension. It makes up about 55% of the body's total blood volume. It is the int ...

in blood transfusions, for which there could be a large need in wartime. Pharmacia, which then was still a small company, was contacted in 1943 and its CEO Elis Göth was very interested. The product Macrodex, a dextran solution, was launched four years later. Dextran-based products were to play a significant role in the further expansion of Pharmacia. In 1951, the company moved to

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the ca ...

, Sweden, to get closer to the scientists with whom they cooperated, and Ingelman became its head of research. In 1959, Pharmacia pioneered

gel filtration Size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), also known as molecular sieve chromatography, is a chromatographic method in which molecules in solution are separated by their size, and in some cases molecular weight. It is usually applied to large molecul ...

with its Sephadex products. These were also based on dextran and discoveries in Tiselius' department, this time by Jerker Porath and Per Flodin. In 1967 Pharmacia Fine Chemicals was established in Uppsala. In 1986 Pharmacia Fine Chemicals acquired LKB-produkter AB and changed name to Pharmacia Biotech. Pharmacia Biotech expanded their role in the "biotech revolution" through its acquisition of PL Laboratories from Pabst Brewery offering a line of recombinant DNA specialty research chemicals. Sold to private interests in the 1990s, Pharmacia was first merged with "Kabi Vitrum" to form Kabi Pharmacia with headquarters in Uppsala. In 1993, Kabi Pharmacia bought Farmitalia, an Italian company that had developed doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic.Staff
News: Farmitalia bought by Kabi Pharmacia
. Ann Oncol (1993) 4 (5): 345. In 1995 the company merged with the

pharmaceutical company

, becoming known as

Pharmacia & Upjohn Pharmacia & Upjohn was a global pharmaceutical company formed by the merger of Sweden-based Pharmacia AB and the American company Upjohn in 1995. Today the remainder of the company is owned by Pfizer. In 1997, Pharmacia & Upjohn sold several b ...

and moved its headquarters to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. In 1998, the company was divided into two business area. The pharmaceutical business became Pharmacia & Upjohn. The scientific instruments groups which sold chromatography resin, purification equipment, molecular biology reagents and electrophoresis products was purchased by

Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, from Aylesbury and from High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter be ...

in 1998 and was named Amersham Pharmacia Biotech. They later changed the name to Amersham Biosciences and ran their radiochemical and reagents business along with the highly profitable chromatography business. The Pharmacia Logo Drop remained as a highly recognized brand. Amersham Biosciences was sold to GE Healthcare in April 1998 to become GE Healthcare Life Sciences. From 1 April 2020, GE Healthcare Life Sciences has been renamed in Cytiva, following the sale of GE Healthcare Life Sciences from

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...

Danaher Corporation Danaher Corporation is an American globally diversified conglomerate with its headquarters in Washington, D.C. The company designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services. The company' ...

in a $21.4 billion acquisition.

Overview

The following is an illustration of the company's mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs and historical predecessors:

References

External links

Cytiva
{{Authority control Pharmaceutical companies of Sweden Biotechnology companies of Sweden Defunct companies of Sweden Pfizer Pharmaceutical companies established in 1911 Pharmaceutical companies disestablished in 2002 Life sciences industry Biotechnology companies disestablished in 2002 Uppsala Swedish companies established in 1911 Swedish companies disestablished in 2002